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| Yes | 32% | 206 votes | Total: 638 votes | |
| No | 68% | 432 votes |
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Add to FavoritesShould we be forced? Being forced is not the issue here at all. We are not being forced into buying digital televisions, however the change will come about quickly and swiftly just as it did with the elimination of analogue mobile telephones.
Technolog y will continue to progress at a rapid rate and unfortunately to say there will be no one left behind. I personally do not see an issue, I do however see an issue with families who do not have the available funds to purchase brand new electronics.
At this time there has been date set where the government will mandate that all signals be switched to digital predominantly. However in my experience I have seen that these mandates are usually fought before their launch dates due to protest. I do believe that by the time the dates come to pass and the mandate is launched, the consumer in that area would have predominantly already have moved on and switched to digital.
We have to look back also to the different entertainment formats that have sprung up over the years. The main one in question is the DVD. There was no force in the implementation of dominant DVD disks however technology and production did progress into the future and we found that majority consumer purchased DVD players and started collections, but there are still a large number of VHS players, and some companies still producing tapes for the market as well as old movies still being cleared out.
The market mainly changed in the year 2000 to 2001 with the consumer purchasing the DVD players once their price was more affordable. The same thing will happen with digital television. Although there was no government action in making the VHS tape obsolete, the market still progressed and the manufacturers also moved on.
In conclusion I do believe that one day there will be a digital received in all homes, but I also believe that it will not be by force. Consumers may relax as the change will roll over so swiftly that it will not be noticed to anyone not paying attention. When the situation arises for the need rather than want to have digital television, marketing teams will attempt to roll them out as quickly and as affordable as possible. Whenever there is a major change that will affect a large audience the change is usually supported by government and the private sector, so I have no fear in the change and welcome it as it is only an example of progression.
Learn more about this author, Leon K.
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No
No, absolutely not for reasons which are not technical in nature but related to the public relations disaster this could become in February. First off television has always been free and even though digital television is essentially free it does require either a.) upgrading to cable or satellite, of which satellite can provide you with a standard definition signal at the least though some cable operators are still offering an analog signal for the next few years, b.) buying a converter box, which people truly do not know what they are or c.) buying a digital television. People assume when they are getting a standard definition or enhanced definition television that they are getting high definition and they are not. People assume that the digital transition means that everything will be high definition, and that isn't true either.
The best way for this to have been handled was to either force everyone to either go completely up to high definition, which would have required people to buy another television, or to leave it alone altogether. The differences between HD, SD, and ED do nothing but serve to confuse the buying public. Had we been forced to upgrade to something than than digital video, say a digital transition for radio perhaps, then we would have been better prepared to understand the reason for this transition. Digital radio is still an option for those who care enough about radio to take advantage of whta digital transmission allows. It is still free and can still be obtained with the right equipment. Television should be no different.
Television operators now have 4 stations instead of one and are supposed to be offering different content on each station. Right now the only people doing that are PBS and ION. Everyone else is either broadcasting a substandard SD or ED signal on their subcarrier or nothing at all. Right now the coverage of digital television is horrible! If you're more than 5 miles from the station you have to worry about digital tiling and intermittent audio, and again, while people with satellite or cable understand how that happens people watching television over the air most certainly do not! The sensitivity of digital is such that you can stand in one corner of the room and the signal can disappear entirely or someone can walk across the room or even in an unseen part of the house and the audio can cut out and the picture freeze.
There is no evidence that today's high definition televisions are even amplifying the signal once it comes in! Analog televisions did a lot with an over the air signal after it was already received in the event you did not have an expensive antenna to work with. HD television "is just there", and unlike digital audio devices, which resample among other things, to create a flawless experience there is nothing like that included into your average HDTV. You either get it and you don't, and it is maddening figuring out how to keep it once it does come in.
The market should have been the way in which digital television was adopted. No one forced the Internet onto us, or VoIP or any other service, so it will confuse the average customer as to why we are being forced to invest into digital television technology. Yeah it's great that Magnavox has a low end converter box that you can purchase for $10 after the government coupon but the principle that you even have to invest into that technology to begin with is what is troublesome. Had the market played it's course, those converter boxes would have inevitably been a lot cheaper, perhaps even $20 by now. A high end converter box would have been $50, instead of an entry level model.
Some television stations may simply disappear because they do not want to deal with the costs of converting over to all digital. Some low budget operations, or publicly financed operations, like religious channels or independent stations that are under-financed, may simple cease to exist. It may be harder to find HSN or QVC when you need them.
Digital television is also a technology we don't truly need at the moment. The majority of people are on cable, satellite or Internet anyway. For a fraction of the cost of what it takes for a television station to go all digital someone could be providing true wireless access; a product that is actually productive and worth having. Municipalities cannot agree on finding a way to do this for free so it's high time someone stepped out and found a way to take advantage of this opportunity. Wired Internet access may become a thing of the past if cellular can bridge the gap between those who have notebooks or netbooks and those relying on broadband access at home.
This is all supposed to be so that emergency responders can communicate with each other more effectively. Some analog technology may be useful in an event on the level of what happened on 9/01/01 when computer networks could simply no longer route calls as it may be the one reliable communications left. Even still, the government and the television industry could have found a much, much, better way of handling this situation, if for no other reason to create a more gradual transition.
Learn more about this author, Christopher Kendalls.
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